Hi, Gary -
Based on reviews in PC Magazine, I had ordered a Nikon CoolScan 35mm/120 film scanner (about $2000) last January, in part due to it's reported ability to render shadow detail quite well. When it still hadn't arrived by mid-May, I cancelled the order. By sheer luck, PC Magazine online had just done a review of scanners. They recommended the Canon 8800 (or maybe it was 8850) since it did a great job with shadow detail - some others just produced a dark mass - and said the 9950F - though more expensive at about $400 vs $250 - did even better. Both were "Editor's Choices".
As a photographer of steam locomotives for over 40 years, I have more than my share of shadow detail to deal with, so I "paid my money and took my chances". I am VERY glad that I did - the CanoScan 9950F not only does very well with my RR slides, it does a good job with my mom's letter-sized colored-pencil drawings as well - a format the CoolScan simply cannot handle.
The Nikon is five times the price of the Canon, but I doubt is does five times as good a job. Of course the higher you go up the scale, the more a 5% improvement costs. Was a Hasselblad of the time twice as good as my old Mamiya RB-67? Probably not, but it cost about twice as much to get the 5% to 10% improvement. If you're a pro and can write off the cost of your equipment (and don't mind being on a waiting list for more than four months), get the Nikon CoolScan or something similar. If you're a serious amateur, the Canon is a much better deal, and (per PC Magazine) it does MUCH better with shadows than either the HP or Epson equivalents.
- Russo Loco
p.s. See my temporary sites
[www.silcom.com] and -/ss-3/ss-3.htm for some additional 9950 scans - including a handful from Ernie Robart's book Rio Grande Narrow Gauge - the final years. Bear in mind that all of the pics on these sites have been greatly reduced in size and highly compressed to save download time, but they should allow you to get at least an idea of how well the shadows were rendered in several of the shots.
